Tag Archives: Facebook

Chicago skyline seen from Cortland Street Drawbridge. Photo courtesy of John G. Suhayda.

Computer hardware engineers who got the axe last September during a massive downsizing at Motorola’s Chicago headquarters soon found that they were in demand by some of the country’s most successful high tech companies.

It was only a matter of weeks before these newly unemployed engineers were fielding job offers from company’s like Google, Facebook and Apple, who held recruiting events. Amazon also made offers to several of the engineers.

What were these computer-high tech giants hoping for? Mostly to bring these highly skilled workers back home to Silicon Valley. In the case of Google, however, their goal was a bit different, and unique. The search engine giant used the Motorola layoffs to recruit hardware engineers, for the first time, to work in their Chicago office. Until this time Google’s only Chicago hires had been for jobs in software development.

Some of the former Motorola engineers who were at the meeting said that Google had organized a gathering within two weeks of being fired. There were at least 200 hardware engineers in attendance, all of which had been fired by Motorola. During an information session the Google reps demonstrated some of its new hardware products and then discussed bringing jobs in computer hardware development to their Chicago office for the first time.

In widely seen photos first published on the popular social media web site Facebook, a Chicago policeman is shown helping a homeless man at a Chipotle in Lakeview.

The photos show Sergeant B. Hagarty buying lunch for a homeless man who had been digging through the garbage outside the restaurant. The officer noticed the man, tapped on the window, and beckoned for the man to come over. He then asked the homeless man if he was hungry. When the man said yes, Sgt. Hagarty invited him to come inside.

The kind policeman then purchased a meal for the man, shook hands with him, and then left.

The Chicago Police Department put the picture up on its Facebook page. In a short while the page received more than 16,000 “likes” and was shared more than 6,000 times.

The CPD offered praise to Hagarty, explaining that his behavior should be a role model for others. Hagarty is planning on retiring from the CPD at the end of this year, after 35 years of service.